Even halfway through Aaron knew this was the best he’d skated this program all season. The audience to whom he’d been just a vague name a few minutes ago were now at the edge of their seats, clapping to keep time with the music and exhaling in relief every time he landed a jump. The applause, when he finished, sounded like the roar of the waves on the shore in a storm.
IT TOOK FOREVER FOR Aaron to get out of there. After he'd placed third and actually cried—but only a little and into Brendan's shoulder so nobody saw—there was the medal ceremony and testing and the press conference and the gala and so many interviews, because this was Russia and people actually cared about skating here.
Katie sent a congratulatory text, and he was grateful to be able to respond in kind. He wasn’t up for a verbal conversation right now. His family has blown up his phone too, of course, and he texted back and forth with them on the ride back to the hotel with Brendan, Charlotte, and Huy.
Huy invited Aaron to grab food with him and a bunch of other people, but Aaron begged off. After the whirlwind of the day he wanted to be alone to process. So while Huy and Charlotte ran off to enjoy the city, Aaron dumped his gear in his room and then slipped back outside as quick as he could, before he was waylaid by other skaters or their fans.
He turned up his collar as he went; used as he was to the cold in general, December in St. Petersburg was no joke. The wind was biting and only a few other adventurous souls were out on the streets. He walked along the Neva, up past the Winter Palace and the Summer Garden—a whole year in less than a mile. It seemed fitting under the circumstances.
As he passed beyond those most central tourist locations, his legs somehow unwilling to give up this day, Aaron heard a barking. He reached on instinct for his phone. But his volume was still off the way he always had it at competition. Keeping his phone silent was common courtesy to the other skaters, and also, no one needed to hear his seal alert. Besides—The notes? The words? The sounds?—of the barking weren’t quite right. Like a sensible person, Aaron looked around expecting a dog. He didn’t see one.
As he continued to walk, the barking seemed to follow, and Aaron checked his phone more than once; perhaps he had turned it back on by accident after the time he had checked before. But he had not, and the sound was most assuredly coming from the river.
It continued to propel him forward along the embankment until he came to a set of steps that led towards the water. Aaron started down them. He took the first few too quickly, then slowed considerably when he realized they were slick. Falling into an icy river in Russia was not the headline he wanted on the night of his greatest triumph.
He took another cautious step down and squinted into the dark. Something bobbed in the water below. Please don't be a dead body, please don't be a dead body, please don't be a dead body, Aaron's brain unhelpfully supplied. He fished in his pocket for his phone, turned the screen on, and held it up. Below, in the water that he was now far too close to, a pair of large brown eyes blinked back at him before dipping beneath the water.
He took another step down, his free hand trailing along the wall. The rough stone was icy under his fingers. Suddenly the eyes reappeared and the whole of the creature he'd seen rose out of the water and up onto the steps.
It was a seal. Because of course it was.
It and Aaron regarded each other for a moment before the seal barked, jerking its head.
Come closer, come closer.
Aaron did, offering a hand to sniff the way he would to a nervous dog. "I don't think you're supposed to be here, buddy," Aaron said softly.
The seal barked, launched itself from the step to the water—smooth and splashless—and then clambered back up again, this time touching its nose briefly to Aaron's hand.
"What do you want? I don't have any food. Is that what you do... lure people down here to feed you?"
The seal seemed indignant at Aaron's suggestion, and repeated its leap into the water and return to the step.
"Are you lost?" Aaron crouched lower. He didn't dare take another step down, unless he wanted to lose his shoes in the water.
The seal, which was massive, butted its head against Aaron's hand as he stared out into the dark wondering from which direction it had come. The seal continued its contact, seeking affection, Aaron presumed, in a manner very similar to a dog. He wondered if he should call a wildlife rescue, assuming that was the sort of thing one did here.
But then his eyes adjusted and his heart—which had already had the strain of so much joy and victory—nearly stopped. For his friend pressing its head against Aaron's hand was not alone. Out in the river beyond the steps, the sleek domes of two dozen or more seal heads bobbed. And their eyes, benign and gentle, watched him to a one.
A part of Aaron—the part of him that no longer lived on the island that he was from—understood the moment like a horror movie. Any mainlander would have run at this point, slipped on the stone steps, hit their head, and sunk beneath the murky water forever. But he was, for all his best efforts of pretending, no mainlander.
He looked down at his friend, who no longer pressed up into his hand, but watched him, knowing he knew finally, its question.
Aaron shook his head. "I can't go with you,"
